“Why wouldn’t he want to come here?” said Hughley, a former college assistant coach at various levels. “We were glad to have DeMarcus, but we didn’t need him. Our culture had already been built.”

Even though he was told he could transfer to any school in the state once he left Birmingham, Cousins was forced to sit out the first nine games because of recruiting allegations.

“We hadn’t lost a game in this area for four years and we hadn’t lost one in the state for two years,” Hughley said. “They thought, ‘The rich are getting richer. We’ve got to do something about this.’”

Mostly, even though my first response is that nepotism is the Kings way, this isn’t unheard of. The Kings hired Steve Fisher in 1999 when Chris Webber first was on the Kings. He didn’t stay on the staff beyond a year, but he was initially hired.

At any rate, this isn’t unheard of. That’s really my point. Whether Hughley is being hired to simply replace Bryan Gates, or not, it doesn’t matter. Hughley has a body of work that suggests he could help Hassan Whitesdie, who may need Hughley more than Cousins from a teaching standpoint, than anything else.